The Dodgers plan to activate Righty dustin may from the 60-day injury list to start Saturday’s game against the Marlins, manager Dave Roberts told reporters (including Athletic’s Fabian Ardaya). It will be his first MLB appearance in over 15 months as the 24-year-old has been out of action since his surgery on Tommy John in May 2021.
Reaching the majors in 2019, May was one of the game’s best pitching prospects and has excelled in the big league with his limited looks to date. He performed as a swingman in 2019, starting just four of his 14 performances that year. May amassed 10 starts (from 12 appearances) during the truncated 2020 season, and he was a full member of the rotation for the first month of last year before suffering the elbow injury.
An elite groundball artist, May posted a sparkling 2.62 ERA with a slightly better-than-average strikeout rate of 24.9% in his first two big league campaigns. That was promising enough, but he looked set to emerge as an ace-caliber hurler in the first month of 2021. Averaging just under 99 MPH on his fastball, May batted a staggering 37.6% of the batters he faced while racking Up Grounder on 56% of the balls batted he conceded in his first five starts. He posted a 2.74 ERA at the track but was sidelined from his fifth outing with an injury that eventually cost him action for over a year.
May returned to a professional mound about 14 months later, making his first appearance in rehab with the complex league team the Dodgers. After two innings there, he signed on to Triple-A Oklahoma City for another three weeks to get back into MLB form. May has made five starts with OKC and threw 19 frames of a four-run ball with a 33-6 strikeout-to-walk ratio. More important than the results is that he’s down five innings in each of his last two starts, throwing 68 and 70 pitches, respectively. It’s unlikely the Dodgers will rely on him for a three-digit pitch count right out of goal, but a 75-85 pitch excursion against Miami could be on the cards. May expects to gradually expand his pitch count from there and should have plenty of time to transition to a traditional starter’s workload before the postseason begins.
If he can immediately regain his 2021 form, May would be a huge boost for a club that has renewed World Series ambitions. With the revelation that this was happening, they were dealt a severe blow Walker Buehler has to undergo elbow surgery and will not return this season. Still, the team has made under 3.00 ERA performances from all three starters to eclipse 100 innings this year: Julio Urías, Tony Gonsolin and offseason signers Tyler Anderson. Pair this trio with May, a likely late-season return Clayton Kershaw – who continues to dominate when healthy enough to conquer the mound – and some small example performances Andrew Heney, and the Dodgers still have the potential to pull out five or six very strong starters in October. If everyone is healthy, one or two members of that group will pour into the bullpen, which itself ranks fourth in the majors with a 3.16 ERA.